Cloudedjourney Posted March 3, 2013 Share Posted March 3, 2013 I am not trying to imply that they do, but I am at a bit of an impass and a bit curious about it. I have 5 beaver doubles and a big 5 way beaver rack which I purchased in December. I was working like crazy at the time as I am on call, and December everyone takes holidays, and I was expecting everything to slow down afterwards. I was planning on using those days off to locate. Nothing really has slown down, I have been working 7-8 days straight regularly. Now I'm starting to consider hiring a locator as I don't really like having the machines sitting in my house obviously! As a Canadian I haven't found any local in person locations, and I have a bit of a concern with the system of international calling to find locations, maybe some of the veterans feel like weighing in. My quesion is about how irritating on the phone locators are to businesses? If you think of Jehova's Witnesses coming to your door many find just the site of them irritating, they get their guards up as soon as they see them coming up the driveway. Not because I think that there's anything wrong with what the JW's have to say, but because of the way they go about doing it. If there are 5 people in a region hiring locators for example and a business gets called by someone using a script, sounding like a telemarketer, wouldn't that just give them a bad vibe about candy vendors in general? If I went into that same business in person is it not highly possible I they could automatically put their gaurd up as being associated with "one of those candy companies"? So short term you might end up getting a few locations, but long term it just puts an "annoying" label on bulk vendors? what do you think!? Sorry for the long post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 It's all hard, nothing easy about building routes. We try to be professional but we have to do what is needed to continue growing. Often we contact a location, speak to the person in charge of vending and they want us to send them something so we suggest that they take a look at our website. Often they say "just send me information". So we fax them a flyer. Then we call back to see if they received the flyer and can stop in for a brief visit with some samples and they say, "Can you send me something". I that point you just move on. I think its probably the same for full line as bulk vendors. It's hard work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shepherdsflock Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I don't think locators hurt bulk vending anymore than a vendor with poor locating skills self-locating does. It's like asking if it hurts car dealers to hire salespeople. I hire locators for two reasons: I don't have time, and even when I do have time I'm not very effective at obtaining locations. This is not much different from the owner or general manager of a car dealership hiring salespeople. He's too busy handling the rest of the affairs of the dealership to talk to all the people that come onto the lot; and perhaps he's much better as a business manager than as a salesman. So he hires salespeople to do what he can't do because of time or ability constraints. Another thing about locators, their survival is based on their ability to obtain locations for their customers. If they're irritating the people they're calling, they're not going to stay in business very long. They have to learn how speak with people in a way that makes them want to listen to what they have to say. Though, perhaps somebody on here owns a restaurant and could hire a locator to call their business and see exactly how irritating the sales pitch is. I think that would be a wonderful bit of research that would help the members of Vendiscuss gain a better understanding of how locators work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twilliams76 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 In my personal experience using the locator works better for me simply because I'm too busy with my other business to self locate. I did attempt once to self locate. I got all the way to the end of the deal looking as though I would seal the deal only for the owner to decide that there wasn't enough room for my machine (soda). Needless to say I spent quite a bit of time to try and get the deal done only to have it fall through at the end. My locator is very efficient. He does all the hard work, makes sure they have the floor space, and negotiates the commissions. All I do is go meet the owner and close the deal if I like the location, if I don't he'll find another one. He also has a relocation guarantee if things don't work out; he also follows up to see how things are going. Most of my closings are less than 5 minutes since he's done all the hard work. Its worth the extra money IMHO. Sent from my LG-MS870 using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloudedjourney Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Very nice. Sounds like he is an in person locator? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twilliams76 Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 Actually no, he's telemarketing but very thorough. Sent from my LG-MS870 using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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